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There was something truly enticing about the way the black wolf approached his unsuspecting victims.

Argyle had been watching for a while now. It had all started a few days ago, as a way to keep himself entertained. Between activities and talks, the snake had dropped by the hotel’s bar several times. It wasn’t like the convention wasn’t interesting – Argyle was having a really good time, but he’d been meaning to keep a low profile and he hadn’t interacted that much with other attendees.

It was hard not to notice Kodi from a distance, though. The burly wolf had a way of taking over the room as soon as he walked into it. It wasn’t only his physique that made others feel like he was instantly looming over them, but also those piercing yellow eyes. Oh, Argyle was familiar with the way he used them by now. They were subtle and gentle most of the time, but once they found their prey, they would fall on them like a yoke, forcing even taller, stronger individuals to their knees and melting them into a puddle.

As someone with a pretty convincing gaze of his own, Argyle had been judging Kodi’s from a safe distance.

Sure, the black wolf seemed to get results every single time. Several people who’d already fallen under his spell would fix their posture and sit upright whenever he walked into the bar, shooting dreamy glances at the wolf and secretly wishing he’d approach them. The wolf seemed to bask in the attention of those fawning over him and it wasn’t rare to see him surrounded by a small group of people whose brains had been turned to mush over and over and over.

Argyle thought he was too straight-forward. He liked to think of the hypnotic process like concentric circumferences closing around the head of whoever he’d chosen to have fun with, slowly getting smaller, more precise – whereas the black wolf’s style was more like painting a big circle on top of the object of his desire and claiming them as his own with unexpected force. If Argyle was a sniper rifle, Kodi was a cannon. Which wasn’t to say the snake couldn’t see the appeal, obviously.

He had to push those thoughts away when he noticed the black wolf was eyeing him from the other side of the bar. Trying his best to pretend he hadn’t been paying attention to the tiger whose neck had been wrapped in Kodi’s arm for a while now, he turned his eyes to the drink he was having and took a long sip. Perhaps too long.

Things didn’t get any better when the snake noticed Kodi was indeed approaching him, his last victim left to daydream in one of the chairs, slumping forward like a puppet without strings. Fuck, Argyle found himself thinking. I knew this was bound to happen. I knew he would-

“Hey,” Kodi greeted him with a wave, finally standing right in front of his table – a practiced, confident grin on his face as those shiny yellow eyes went over Argyle’s black and purple scales. “I think I know who you are. Your name’s Argyle, right?”

“Yeah,” the snake answered, forcing himself to smile back. “And you’re Kodi.”

The wolf seemed to be actually surprised.

“Oh, you know me?”

“It’s hard not to notice you going around, zonking everyone you can put your paws on.” It took Argyle a few seconds to realize he could have chosen his words more carefully. “Er, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so judgmental. It’s just-”

“Oh, I know you’re a hypnotist too. Don’t worry,” Kodi reassured Argyle.

He gestured to the chair in front of the snake and Argyle nodded hesitantly. The wolf sat in front of him and turned to the counter to order a drink from his position. Argyle couldn’t help thinking the bartender was probably hypnotized as well.

“Perhaps you’re right and I overdid it,” Kodi added, turning back to him. “But you know how it is, so many cuties around and all of them waiting to have their brains scrambled…”

“Hey, I said I’m not judging.” Argyle took another sip of his drink. “Although, I’m not entirely sure all the cuties you pushed into trance even knew what hypnosis was about or liked it before you put your eyes on them, but…”

“Well, they like it now,” Kodi replied, his grin widening. Then a look of sudden realization went through his face and he shook his head vehemently. “Wait, no, not like that! I don’t mean to say I forced that into them, just that now that they know what it is, they surely like it.”

“Don’t worry, I get you.” Argyle waved a dismissive hand in front of Kodi, who seemed to relax a bit. The snake was also feeling a bit more comfortable now that he got to see the other side of the big wolf. “Hypnosis is a bit of an… acquired taste for some.”

“Right.”

The bartender, a fluffy Zoroark with pink, glassy eyes, approached their table and placed the drink in front of Kodi. Yep, Argyle thought. Definitely hypnotized.

“Sometimes you just have to take the first step and then, if there’s a reliable amount of interest in those eyes, you keep pushing gently,” Argyle argued, grabbing his glass and watching the ice move in circles. He chuckled. “Or not so gently, in your case.”

Kodi’s ears lowered.

“Hey, what do you mean? I’m not that rough.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

“You said you weren’t judging.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just observing,” Argyle noted, confidence flowing into his grin for the first time since the start of their conversation. “You’re free to change my mind by showing how delicately you can zonk any of the people drinking over there, though.”

Kodi regarded him for a few seconds, an idea forming in his mind. Then, he replied to Argyle’s grin with one of his own and his eyes pulsed with a deep, fascinating yellow.

“There are other ways to change your mind, you know.”

Argyle felt the push in his mind almost immediately, like a big paw trying to force his thoughts to the back of his skull. It took all his will power not to surrender right there, right then. After a moment of weakness, he broke eye contact and looked down to his drink, finishing it with one long gulp. That one’s on me, he thought. I should have seen it coming.

“Aw,” Kodi’s voice reached his ears, twice as authoritative and seductive than it’d been mere seconds ago. “What a shame.”

“Perhaps I’ll let you do that some other time,” the snake said once he’d recovered from the wolf’s sudden movement. He took a deep breath and gestured for the bartender to bring another drink. “Was that supposed to be delicate, by the way?”

“Maybe. Did it feel too strong for you, or what?” the black wolf asked, his confident smirk returning. Argyle found himself admiring it for longer than was strictly necessary. Fuck. I need to get out of this mindset.

“What do you think? I’m still here, my will intact, thank you.” He leaned on his elbows, choosing instead to take the risk of getting even closer to Kodi’s eyes. “Strength isn’t all that there is.”

“Oh, but it helps.”

“I bet it does. You should be careful, though – strong guys like you tend to drop… stupidly hard.”

Argyle didn’t accompany those words with a flash of his eyes. He didn’t even change his voice to the well-practiced cadence he used for hypnosis. But the snake made sure to inject something different into it, something that needn’t necessarily be hypnotic – perhaps a slightly longer pronunciation of the letter ‘s’ in ‘stupidly’, maybe the hint of a promise underneath the surface of his casual tone. There weren’t any hypnotic shenanigans going on and still Kodi’s shiver was noticeable even from across the table.

“Hmm,” the wolf mumbled, shifting his position on the chair and burying his muzzle in the drink before him, as if that way he could forget about the pleasant feelings that had just been aroused in him. “So I’ve heard, yeah. I still need to see it happen.”

It wasn’t a very convincing answer. Argyle took a sip of his drink and leaned closer. By then he was starting to feel the familiar effect of having so much alcohol too quick, but he was also growing confident. The tip of his tail slipped underneath the table, gently caressing Kodi’s leg.

“Who knows,” the snake whispered. “Perhaps today’s your lucky day?”

Lots of ‘s’ in that last sentence, Argyle thought, but they seemed to be having an effect on the wolf. His smile wasn’t cocky anymore – just pleased, either with himself for resisting the snake’s charms or with Argyle for indulging him like that. It was difficult to know which one. He’d definitely shivered at the touch of his scales, though.

But Argyle liked it slow, generally. He moved away from the wolf and chuckled, letting him breathe.

“Or maybe you’ll be too busy hypnotizing all the attendees.”

Kodi finished his drink and held Argyle’s gaze, defiantly. Surprisingly so, given how flustered the snake could have sworn he was making him feel with just a few carefully placed words and touches.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t have any plans.”

There was a different glaze in his eyes, something that didn’t have to do with hypnosis either. Was he drunk as well?

“What about you?” the wolf asked, leaning closer. Argyle suddenly felt the looming presence that must have pushed so many to their knees before and couldn’t help but shiver a bit. “Do you have a place to be, things to do? I bet a charming snake like you doesn’t get too many chances to… properly relax.”

It took Argyle a few seconds to answer back. Wait, he thought. Did he just make the same pause I did before or am I imagining things? If so, Kodi was a quick learner. Argyle had never been countered like that before.

The snake cleared his throat and gazed at the towering wolf, feeling more comfortable than he was willing to admit in that lower position.

“Doesn’t happen too often, no.”

“Do you want it to?” Kodi asked, that perfect smirk returning to his face, fangs showing just the perfect amount over his lower lip.

Submission bubbled inside Argyle’s scaled body like sweet poison. He wanted to shake his head, he wanted to say he didn’t – but Kodi’s proposal sat perfectly well between commanding and tempting, making things harder for him, making it so difficult to just refuse. He did want to let the wolf take control, just as much as he wanted to push that big mammal to his knees and show him how fast and easy he could turn a big guy like him into a mindless, drooling slave.

Alcohol wasn’t making it any easier to make a choice, either. His thoughts were doubly hard to grasp, bursting like the bubbles in his glass.

“I…” he muttered. And then, something triggered inside him. He felt his eyes power up like batteries, his body tense a bit – a shadow of pride return to where it should have been. “I think if we’re talking about strength, there’s nothing stronger than the gaze of a snake.”

It pleased him to see he’d surprised Kodi. His yellow eyes mirrored the pulsing pink lights that had just appeared in front of him – his eyelids dropped momentarily, the wolf’s body relaxing for a second – and then he replied with glowing eyes of his own and Argyle felt them pushing his mind inwards so, so much stronger than before.

They struggled against each other for a few seconds, the force of their gazes making it difficult to speak at first. It felt like a game of tug of war, but the only rope tying them together was the bridge forming between their eyes.

“We’ll need more drinks,” the wolf growled, his voice deep and husky. At first Argyle thought he was talking to him, until he understood he was simply giving a new command to the bartender.

“Make thosssse double,” he added with a commanding voice of his own.

The snake wasn’t even sure the bartender had heard them. He was too focused on not giving up to the wolf’s magnetic gaze and he could tell Kodi was in a similar situation.

Knowing he was putting his adversary against the ropes only inflated his confidence even more, but there was no room or time to lay back. Kodi’s intense yellow gaze seemed to be melting everything around him – the room, the people, the noises. He bet the wolf was in a similar situation, but celebrating too soon could end up in him losing the fight.

Which didn’t sound so bad, actually.

Except he didn’t want to.

“You should quit,” Kodi’s voice echoed in his head. It sounded slow and monotonous, the words slurred – whether that was too many drinks or the effect of hypnosis, there was no way to tell. “I once zonked somebody in the middle of a concert. And it was their favorite band playing, just so you know.”

Argyle scoffed. He felt something was placed in front of him and moved one of his heavy hands blindly until he grabbed a new drink.

“I once hypnotized a fennec for so long that he’d daydream about me,” the snake replied after finishing the drink in one long, probably irresponsible gulp. His head swirled and the floor moved under his chair, but Argyle didn’t give in. “And then I invited him over and he sucked my dick.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’ve hypnotized people without even being there,” Kodi counterattacked. There was a long pause and Argyle could have sworn he was drinking not one, but the two glasses placed in front of him. “A streamer, triggered by a notification sound. A friend, with a Christmas present.”

“How very fessssstive of you,” Argyle hissed. He finished the other glass placed in front of him and clenched his fangs. The room had long disappeared. His own words felt slow and sluggish, his tongue heavy. Kodi was the only thing that existed. “I bet I can… Hic! I can hypnotize more people than you.”

“What! No… no way. I can hypnotize more people than… you. Twice as… as many. For sure.”

“Pffft! Keep dreaming. I can hypnotize thrice more than… than…”

“I can hypnotize four… uh, more than you…”

“No… Hic! I can… can…”

* * *

Errol woke up with a pretty bad headache and stretched for so long that he thought his body must surely have got a few inches taller.

It took him a while to gather his thoughts as he opened his eyes, expecting to see the white ceiling of his hotel room. Instead, he was met with a wood-paneled wall that he was familiar with, but still felt completely out of place. That wasn’t his room, right? That was the hotel’s bar.

Had he even gone to his room last night after work? He didn’t think so.

The next thing the Zoroark noticed was the astonishing amount of lying bodies all around him. They all seemed to be sleeping, fortunately – one of the deepest sleeps one could possibly found oneself in, judging by the sound of some of their snores. Next to Errol there was a tanuki, and then a small dragon, and then a way bigger dragon, and then a tiger, and a bull, and a fox, and… By then, Errol decided to stop counting. Many, too many people were sleeping at the same time. It was a bit uncanny.

Glasses were knocked over wherever he looked, although none of them seemed to be broken. Drinks had been spilled, however, and several stains that would probably make his day harder covered the carpet. Errol realized people seemed to have drooled an alarming amount as well, judging by the similar stains in their clothes. A quick glance at his own shirt made him realize he seemed to have been drooling too. He really hoped that was simply drool, although a strange tingle between his legs gave him a different idea.

There was no remembering what had happened. Perhaps somebody had spiked their drinks? I don’t understand why this keeps happening to me, the Zoroark thought, more annoyed than worried. Probably because I volunteer for these conventions. They should definitely pay me more for this.

He stood up – apparently he’d been lying on the counter – and took a look around.

In the center of the room, like some kind of ornamental centerpiece, a wolf and a snake slept together. The wolf was lying on his back, wide chest rising and sinking heavily as he snored, while the snake’s tail was coiled around one of the canine’s legs, his hooded head resting on the wolf’s belly. It was a weird sight to behold and, to be honest, Errol wasn’t sure whether they’d been fighting or making love before finally passing out because of the alcohol.

The Zoroark had the weird feeling that he’d seen the wolf before, though. Like, if the big fella were to open his eyes, he’d instantly remember. They were deep and yellow. He knew that even if they were closed now.

In the end, Errol shook his head and pushed those invasive, strangely aroused feelings away. Whatever had happened, it must have been one hell of a party.

“Well, time to earn my wage,” he said under his breath. “And probably annoy a few drunkards as I do so.”